Golf Marketing for Golf Coaches
What is marketing and what can it do for me and my Golf Coaching Business? The following blog post will answer this question.
What is (golf) marketing?
Let’s start by clarifying what marketing means. Marketing is often equated with advertising, advertisements and posting on social media – which is not entirely true. So what is marketing?
Imagine a Golf Coach wants to organize an event on the driving range.
He creates posters and puts them up all over the Golf Course – that is advertising.
Now posters are placed on an self-driving golf cart that drives around the Golf Course, this is called a promotion / advertising campaign.
If the Golf Cart now drives into the green bunker on hole 18 and gets stuck and the club magazine writes a story about the event – that’s PR.
If the Golf Coach explains what’s on offer at the event and how entertaining it will be and answers questions – that’s sales.
Planning all this is marketing.
The aim of marketing is to make products and services visible in the target group or market and thus increase sales in order to generate more turnover and achieve business goals.
Marketing – how to get started?
Unfortunately, many people make the mistake of starting to create content for their social media platforms straight away. This is actually the last step.
Before you start creating content, i.e. implementing it, you first need to know what your goals are. What do you want to achieve? Where should the journey take you? You need to create the foundation – a strategy and a plan.
The foundation consists of creating the mission, vision, setting goals and positioning. The next step is to define the target group, the brand personality, and the message. This information is then used to determine which marketing channels to use and to define objectives for the individual channels. The final step is then to create the appropriate content for the selected channels.
It can be compared to building a house – first you must lay the foundation and only then can you build the walls and the roof.
Marketing – Golf Clubs / Courses vs Golf Coaches?
Is marketing for Golf Clubs / Golf Courses different form marketing for Golf Coaches?
At first you might think that marketing is marketing, but the crucial difference is the objective of activities. In most cases, you as a Golf Coach have different goals than a Golf Course.
The classic goals for a Golf Course are usually to attract new members or more green fee players. As a Golf Coach, your goal is to give golf lessons or have fully booked programs. The goals are not necessarily identical either – in addition, the target group is usually not the same either. In addition, the lifestyle brand (Golf Club) meets the expert brand (Golf Coach).
There are many reasons why you as a Golf Coach should not rely on the marketing of your Golf Course alone but should become active yourself and take care of your own marketing.
Choosing the right marketing channels
Many will advise you to choose the marketing channel that best suits your target group and has the greatest ROI (return of investment). This is true on the one hand, but I think one very important component is missing here. The selected marketing channels must also suit you and be fun for you. If this is not the case, it will be difficult to create content and activities for these channels in the long term.
Because let’s be honest, most Golf Coaches will initially take on their marketing activities themselves and not outsource them to external service providers. Especially if you mainly take care of your marketing activities yourself, it is important that you also enjoy it.
In the beginning, simply test out different channels to find out what you enjoy and what suits your target group.
Don’t rely on just one marketing channel.
Focus in business is important, but in my opinion there are two key reasons why you should not rely on just one marketing channel:
Dependence
If you only focus on one marketing channel, this naturally has the advantage that you can concentrate completely on this channel when creating content and get to know this channel very well and understand how it works.
The biggest disadvantage is that you become 100% dependent on this channel. Especially if your only marketing channel is an external social media platform. The platform changes something about its formats – you have to change something too. If the platform is not available, you can no longer communicate with your target group and the contracts are not yours.
This doesn’t mean that you should no longer be active on social media. But you should look for a second way, for example email marketing, that makes you less dependent on social media platforms.
Reach
If you use two different marketing channels, you can increase your reach and the frequency with which you send your message to your target group.
Now you’re probably thinking, if I use several channels, that means I have more work to do when creating content because you have to create something different for each one. I can reassure you that this is not true. Our motto is “work smarter not harder”. Recycle your content and communicate it across all your selected marketing channels. For example, you can post everything you post on Instagram on LinkedIn or other platforms.
When selecting marketing channels, I can only recommend that you don’t rely on just one channel. Ask yourself: can I still reach my target group if this channel does not work for various reasons?
How I can help you
Brandspiration supports you developing a marketing strategy that suits you and your target group. Together we develop a marketing strategy and plan for your Golf Coaching Business. From the target group to your mission and vision as well as you brand personality and marketing channels. In the end you will have a plan for your marketing activities that not only suits you, but also your target group.
My mission is to show Golf Coaches how they can easily build their own marketing and brand so that they can take their Golf Coaching Business into their own hands, reach their ideal customers, and make it successful.
Tee up your Marketing and let’s drive your Golf Business Game to the next level.